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England is nothing short of rubbish

Cooky Monster

U19 12th Man
****ing depressing knowing Flower is going to stay on, it makes me angry listening to the bull**** he has been spouting recently.

If people think things will sort themselves out under the current regime then they have their heads in the sand, can see it already in this thread with ****e like that 'end of story' post.
 

Cooky Monster

U19 12th Man
You can look at every aspect of this tour - the attitude of the players, the fact England arrived as favourites, the 82-page menu - and it all paints a picture of a team which has become far too insular.

That was illustrated when I put a question to captain Alastair Cook.

I asked whether the opinions of those outside of the team - those who have played cricket all their lives and have watched the game for years - were worth seeking, and he said no. He said essentially it was for those within the team to work out what has gone wrong. That is a worry to me and shows there is no real awareness of what is happening outside the team's bubble.

Agnew to Cook, astonishing answer there.
 

Captain_Cook

U19 12th Man
I asked whether the opinions of those outside of the team - those who have played cricket all their lives and have watched the game for years - were worth seeking, and he said no. He said essentially it was for those within the team to work out what has gone wrong. That is a worry to me and shows there is no real awareness of what is happening outside the team's bubble.

Agnew to Cook, astonishing answer there.
CM, you have taken that answer out of context. The question was posed before the series had started and Warne was spouting his rubbish. It proved an accurate analysis in hindsight but ridiculous at the time.

Agnew is having his cake and eating it. He praised that comment as concentration and desire to win four Ashes in a row when it was made.
 

Neil Pickup

Cricket Web Moderator
You've been extremely gentle on Cook in that rather simplistic assessment. Surely he'd have to take some of the load for the mental frailty as the series went on?
I'm not trying to gloss over the fact that we've come third in a two-horse race this winter, and yes I am simplifying (but that's what happens when you're posting at 5:22am having sat through it for six hours. It's no more simplistic, however that any of the analysis that has either proclaimed us to be on a different level following the 3-0 ("4-0") win in the summer, nor the bunch of incompetents that we are being painted as following the current shellacking.

It's very, very easy to slate sportsmen after a defeat, and to come up with reasons after the event for why things are not going well, but this game, by its very nature, is far more complicated than that. It's a whole lot more difficult to come up with a cogent plan of action to take things forward; so far I've not seen anything deeper than demands to sack Cook and Flower, as well as dropping half of the side. We got rid of Matt Prior mid-series because he was "not good enough"/"underperforming" and instead we got somebody who is neither close to being good enough with bat nor gloves, and if we follow some of the suggestions going around in the threads I've read (Buttler? Taylor? Mills?) we'll get exactly the same. We've had a run of several years as one of the best teams in the world with this personnel and under this management, and they're not stupid. They know they've underperformed; they know this is well below the standards that we as supporters and they as players want to achieve, and they've done enough in the last years to deserve patience when the wheels come off.

Why were we mentally exhausted? Schedule must have something to do with it; the human psyche can't continue to function when it's down and beaten and when it has no time to recover and recuperate. Swann's departure is symbolic of that. Flower is continuing; he is as aware as the rest of us that this team was second best, and he gives the indications that he's ready to lead the rebuilding into the next England unit. Some players will need more cricket - and the Lions tour - others will need a total break. Those calling for Cook's head need to present an alternative. Australia have got inside our heads and we've had nowhere to go; this was a whitewash that was coming the moment Brisbane came to its undignified end.

I am not for a moment saying we bury our heads in the sand and carry on as we are: selection (Finn, Tremlett, Rankin), the effect of the specialist coaches Saker and Gooch, whose effect seems to have gone stale since the halcyon summer of 2011, captaincy and particularly field placing and strategy were flawed, but they didn't want to lose. They didn't stop trying - why would they stop trying? - they were just battered, bruised, beaten and broken. They don't become bad players overnight, though, and they deserve the chance to build again.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
I am not for a moment saying we bury our heads in the sand and carry on as we are: selection (Finn, Tremlett, Rankin)
As much as I agree that the selection has been a joke for this double series, Finn and Tremlett are a strange duo to bring up as I think for this tour they were both fair game.
 

Neil Pickup

Cricket Web Moderator
As much as I agree that the selection has been a joke for this double series, Finn and Tremlett are a strange duo to bring up as I think for this tour they were both fair game.
All three have toured as glorified drinks waiters; Tremlett was down on pace - massively so - and it has to be a worry that we didn't even seem to realise that until after Brisbane, when the chat all season was that he was a shadow of his former self. I mentioned Finn from the perspective of the fact that he's apparently regressed over the last year, and that it's hard to follow his place in the pecking order.

What's your beef with James Taylor, ****?
Bottom hand dominance, lack of shots on the offside, likelihood of nicking off like a cheap George Bailey impersonator.
 

centurymaker

International Captain
Much like India in England and Australia and Australia in India once the tide has turned against you it is almost impossible to stop it.

Has to be serious questions asked about the gutless displays in the last couple of tests though, being beaten is one thing but showing no fight is unacceptable.

Raises the question whether 4 or 5 match Test series are really worth it for certain nations playing overseas, when the contest is often so one-sided and very predictable. Maybe the dead-rubbers should be called off just like the VB series
 

Tom Halsey

International Coach
I seem to be in a minority of one in this belief but I don't think Tremlett was terrible in the game he played.
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
It's all about the first two tests. Once you get beaten badly in them, it is very hard to make a comeback. Going through all whitewashes in the last two years, the teams managed to compete in the first two matches even though they still got beaten.

But for the remainder of the series, it was just going through the motions with the players' confidence shot
Validates BCCI's preference of playing two test series IMO. :ph34r:
 

benchmark00

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Interesting to note that no team has ever been whitewashed after winning one of the first two matches.
 

MW1304

Cricketer Of The Year
I agree with most of what Pickup said tbh. The calls for mass changes and the involvement of completely unproven, more-than-raw youngsters like Mills are reactionary. Luckily we have a while to carefully consider where to go from here but I'm certain that throwing in fresh blood for the sake of it is not the way to go.
 

bulldog01

Cricket Spectator
Worst England performance while ive been on this earth

This has to be the most spineless performance I've seen from a team in a long time. I know NZ has had its fair share of one sided losses but most of the time this has been due to us not having the players to compete at the top level. What is England's excuse?

The commitment levels are just not there. I am not an England fan but it pains me to see a team play like this. They're not putting in any effort. It's disgusting.
Im 46 and have never seen such a rubbish feel sorry for themselves performance since I started playing cricket at 10 years old.
The body language has been awful and this has been allowed by cook the captain. He hasn't got a strong enough personality to run a side that needs motivating.
The new players coming in to replace some of the disgraced players are simply not up to the task. Bowlers going for 6 an over in a test match clearly shows that.
Many heads have to go including a spell required back in county cricket for cook to get some batting form back. Batsman are clearly scored of johnson which is not acceptable (it just hurts when you get hit - bare up and take the pain and get a bowling m/c to bowl 100mph bouners at you for practice).

So to summarise - no effort, lack of care, poor batting technique, rubbish line and length bowling, poor fielding, poor leadership and crap management. No excuses - heads have to roll.
 

uvelocity

International Coach
They didn't stop trying - why would they stop trying? - they were just battered, bruised, beaten and broken. They don't become bad players overnight, though, and they deserve the chance to build again.
they did stop trying old mate, swinging the bat and being bowled out in 32 overs is the very definition of not trying. utterly embarassing for the lot of them. flower let them do it, cook let them do it, they didn't even care enough to think about what it said about them as men - let alone sportsmen.
 

vic_orthdox

Global Moderator
I don't see how nothing can change. I agree that the personnel in the team has to stay similar, but then there's a need for a new messenger. They'd stopped listening and caring.
 

Ruckus

International Captain
they did stop trying old mate, swinging the bat and being bowled out in 32 overs is the very definition of not trying. utterly embarassing for the lot of them. flower let them do it, cook let them do it, they didn't even care enough to think about what it said about them as men - let alone sportsmen.
yeah i agree. It's obv impossible to really know what's going on in their heads, but it did look awfully like they simply stopped giving a **** towards the end. I mean you can say they were 'broken' or whatever, but what's that really mean? To me, being broken is what happened to someone like Trott - being in a genuine state of malfunction, to the point of simply not being able to carry on, despite all attempts at doing so. I don't think Cook and co were subject to those kinds of problems, I think they could have fought harder, and had the ability to do so, but they simply chose not to because it was the easy way out.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
After England lost a few wickets after tea on day 3 of Sydney they stopped trying. You cannot argue otherwise. They scored 76 runs in the last 10 overs and lost 6 wickets. They stopped trying to win. They stopped trying to draw. They waved the white flag and had a swing.
 

Sean Flynn

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
England need to bring in a new coach and create a new environment because quite plainly this one is too intense. The Australians seem very happy with Lehmann and he appears to be a link to the old school. What is the point of carrying on with the exact same coaches and the exact same formula?
 

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